Nginx Reverse Proxy Setup for Linux Server

Nginx also pronounced “Engine-X” is a free, open-source HTTP Web server and one of the best alternative to Apache http server. It is a high-performance edge web server with the lowest memory footprint and the key features to build modern and efficient web infrastructure. Nginx also provides a combination of Nginx web servers, Nginx reverse proxy and Nginx load balancing solution to the websites that running on high traffic and just wants to be consistently efficient. Nginx has the lowest memory footprint possible and optimizes CPU usage while delivering maximum performance even on a very cheap server hardware. More importantly, Nginx is able to continuously take more connections while maintaining low memory usage.

What is Nginx Reverse Proxy ?

When Nginx reverse proxy received request, it sends a request to the specified proxied server. In this case the specified proxied server is Apache web server. When Nginx reverse proxy fetches the response from Apache web server, It will sends it back to the client. In other words, Nginx reverse proxy serve as front-end server for Apache web service.

How to Setup Nginx Reverse Proxy for Linux

This article will show you how to install and configure Nginx reverse proxy for Apache web server. It was assumed that Apache web server has been running at 192.168.1.55 and nginx will be install at another server with Ip address, 192.168.1.54. This has been tested and working fine at CentOS 6 / CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 / Oracle Linux 7.

On above configuration file, all the traffic to ehowstuff.local port 80 will be redirected to the Apache web server that hosted at 192.168.1.55. Nginx reverse proxy serve as front-end server for Apache web service.

About The Author

The author of this blog is a part time blogger who is very enthusiastic about computer technology and Linux open source and has more than 8 years of experience in servicing, installing, configuring, administering Linux servers and VMware.